Two Israeli soldiers recently spoke at ASU, giving a very positive message, according to an article in the school’s newspaper, The Herald. Many times, the real story is not told and Israelis are made out to be monsters. The stories recounted by these two young ladies illustrate that Israel is a shining light in a sea of Islamic darkness.

One of the soldiers, Orit, a native Israeli Jew, talked about her experiences as a front line combat medic in the West Bank. One evening she was roused from sleep and instructed to go to the security prison to take care of a recently captured prisoner. Orit found out that the prisoner was a well-known terrorist who had recently sent his sister on a suicide mission to a restaurant. The blast had killed many people, including children.

Orit said this about the moment she found out the identity of her patient:

“I had pictures of his victims just crashing through my mind, and there he was, the man responsible for all this,” Orit said. “He made his own sister commit a suicide bombing to murder all these people, and there I was, only 18, asked to treat this.”

“I knew I had to treat him. I was trained to be a medical aid regardless of who the person is,” Orit said. “It wasn’t an easy moment for me, because I felt like I had betrayed the victims of his actions.”

The other soldier, Drew, was born in Minneapolis and raised in Phoenix, AZ. She went to Israel and was placed in the Civil Administration organization, which serves as the liaison between the Israeli Defense Forces and the Israeli government, as well as functioning as an ambassador between international organizations.

According to The Herald article, through her position, Drew was able to help forge new understandings between Middle Eastern states, and one of her victories was arranging mutually acceptable meeting times for Palestinian families whose relatives were being held for war crimes.